VLBI terrestrial reference frame contributions to ITRF2008

In late 2008, the Product Center for the International Terrestrial Reference Frame (ITRF) of the International Earth Rotation and Reference Systems Service (IERS) issued a call for contributions to the next realization of the International Terrestrial Reference System, ITRF2008. The official contribution of the International VLBI Service for Geodesy and Astrometry (IVS) to ITRF2008 consists of session-wise datum-free normal equations of altogether 4,539 daily Very Long Baseline Interferometry (VLBI) sessions from 1979.7 to 2009.0 including data of 115 different VLBI sites. It is the result of a combination of individual series of session-wise datum-free normal equations provided by seven analysis centers (ACs) of the IVS. All series are completely reprocessed following homogeneous analysis options according to the IERS Conventions 2003 and IVS Analysis Conventions. Altogether, nine IVS ACs analyzed the full history of VLBI observations with four different software packages. Unfortunately, the contributions of two ACs, Institute of Applied Astronomy (IAA) and Geoscience Australia (AUS), had to be excluded from the combination process. This was mostly done because the IAA series exhibits a clear scale offset while the solution computed from normal equations contained in the AUS SINEX files yielded unreliable results. Based on the experience gathered since the combination efforts for ITRF2005, some discrepancies between the individual series were discovered and overcome. Thus, the consistency of the individual VLBI solutions has improved considerably. The agreement in terms of WRMS of the Terrestrial Reference Frame (TRF) horizontal components is 1 mm, of the height component 2 mm. Comparisons between ITRF2005 and the combined TRF solution for ITRF2008 yielded systematic height differences of up to 5 mm with a zonal signature. These differences can be related to a pole tide correction referenced to a zero mean pole used by four of five IVS ACs in the ITRF2005 contribution instead of a linear mean pole path as recommended in the IERS Conventions. Furthermore, these systematics are the reason for an offset in the scale of 0.4 ppb between the IVS’ contribution to ITRF2008 and ITRF2005. The Earth orientation parameters of seven series used as input for the IVS combined series are consistent to a huge amount with about 50 μas WRMS in polar motion and 3 μs in dUT1.     

New VLBI2010 scheduling strategies and implications on the terrestrial reference frames

In connection with the work for the next generation VLBI2010 Global Observing System (VGOS) of the International VLBI Service for Geodesy and Astrometry, a new scheduling package (Vie_Sched) has been developed at the Vienna University of Technology as a part of the Vienna VLBI Software. In addition to the classical station-based approach it is equipped with a new scheduling strategy based on the radio sources to be observed. We introduce different configurations of source-based scheduling options and investigate the implications on present and future VLBI2010 geodetic schedules. By comparison to existing VLBI schedules of the continuous campaign CONT11, we find that the source-based approach with two sources has a performance similar to the station-based approach in terms of number of observations, sky coverage, and geodetic parameters. For an artificial 16 station VLBI2010 network, the source-based approach with four sources provides an improved distribution of source observations on the celestial sphere. Monte Carlo simulations yield slightly better repeatabilities of station coordinates with the source-based approach with two sources or four sources than the classical strategy. The new VLBI scheduling software with its alternative scheduling strategy offers a promising option with respect to applications of the VGOS.     

Sensitivity of UT1 determined by single-baseline VLBI to atmospheric delay model, terrestrial and celestial reference frames

 At the present time, the daily VLBI observations on the Westford-Wettzell baseline is the only continually running VLBI project for studies of high-frequency Earth rotation variations. An analysis of this experiment with regard to the potential errors in the atmospheric delay model and in adopted celestial and terrestrial reference frames is presented in the paper. A new VLBI geometric delay model is applied and an algorithm for global adjustment for this specific single-baseline VLBI developed. The results over three years show discrepancies at the milliarcsecond level between the daily observations and the adopted atmospheric model as well as the combined celestial reference frame. A significant number of these discrepancies are removed by the global adjustment. Received: 19 August 1996; Accepted: 13 September 1996     

利用天测与测地VLBI观测建立天球与地球参考架

本文讨论了利用天测与测地 VLBI观测建立天球与地球参考架过程中所面临的问题及解决的技术途径 ,涉及天球参考架与地球参考架原点与定向的确定、地球参考架时间演变的确定等。并通过实测数据分析与结果比对证明解决途径的有效性。     

A windowing-recursive approach for GPS real-time kinematic positioning

All conventional Kalman filtering methods depend to a great extent on dynamic models for describing the motion state of vehicle. However, low-cost GPS navigation systems do not provide velocity and acceleration measurements to construct dynamic models. Therefore, it is rather difficult to establish reasonable dynamic models. A windowing-recursive approach (WRA) which employs previous positions to predict the current position is proposed, and the transition matrix is modeled for transforming the previous positions to the current one. Two typical transition matrices are constructed by numerical polynomial fitting and extrapolation. A real vehicular GPS experiment is carried out to demonstrate the WRA performances in two relative positioning scenarios. The data are processed by the least squares approach and by WRA using the two developed transition matrices. The results show that the WRA performed excellently in a high sampling rate data. In case of a lower sampling rate, higher-order polynomial fitting and extrapolation models work better than lower-order models for a given window. In addition, the extrapolation models can alleviate the computation burdens significantly relative to the polynomial fitting models.     

Multi-feature based boresight self-calibration of a terrestrial mobile mapping system

This paper presents a multi-feature based system calibration method for estimating the boresight angles of a land-based mobile mapping system (MMS) comprised of multiple two dimensional (2D) scanners. The method invokes a least-squares adjustment (LSA) to simultaneously estimate several sets of boresight angles for multiple laser scanners incorporated in an MMS as well as the parameters associated with one or more types of geometric features. This is achieved by constraining the groups of feature point clouds captured by multiple runs to fit their corresponding geometric models in such a way that the weighted sum of squares of adjustment residuals is minimized. The method is particularly suitable for in situ calibration because the geometric features involved are commonly occurring structures (e.g. building façades, bridge surfaces, highway signs and hanging power cables) that are usually captured during the actual survey. In addition to using a planar feature model for calibration, a novel and rigorous three-dimensional (3D) catenary curve model is proposed for geometric modelling of hanging cables to augment the calibration. The proposed calibrations were examined with several different combinations of groups of planar and catenary features and the resulting analysis suggests that the in situ calibrations are effective when compared to the manufacturer’s dedicated calibration, with the overall point cloud accuracies for plane fitting being 5.5 cm and 5.4 cm for the vertical and horizontal directions, respectively. It has been successfully demonstrated that the proposed method can be used in a scene having no building façades but only some long hanging cables and horizontal ground surfaces. This is particularly useful for rural areas or inter-city/provincial highways where building façades cannot commonly be captured. Parameter correlations in the calibrations were also addressed. It has also been shown that using catenary features in addition to planar features for the calibration can help de-correlate some parameters and improve the overall accuracy. The in situ nature and the high flexibility of integrating different features of the calibration make the proposed method straightforward for most end-users.     

Continental hydrology loading observed by VLBI measurements

Variations in continental water storage lead to loading deformation of the crust with typical peak-to-peak variations at very long baseline interferometry (VLBI) sites of 3–15 mm in the vertical component and 1–2 mm in the horizontal component. The hydrology signal at VLBI sites has annual and semi-annual components and clear interannual variations. We have calculated the hydrology loading series using mass loading distributions derived from the global land data assimilation system (GLDAS) hydrology model and alternatively from a global grid of equal-area gravity recovery and climate experiment (GRACE) mascons. In the analysis of the two weekly VLBI 24-h R1 and R4 network sessions from 2003 to 2010 the baseline length repeatabilities are reduced in 79 % (80 %) of baselines when GLDAS (GRACE) loading corrections are applied. Site vertical coordinate repeatabilities are reduced in about 80 % of the sites when either GLDAS or GRACE loading is used. In the horizontal components, reduction occurs in 70–80 % of the sites. Estimates of the annual site vertical amplitudes were reduced for 16 out of 18 sites if either loading series was applied. We estimated loading admittance factors for each site and found that the average admittances were 1.01 \(\pm \) 0.05 for GRACE and 1.39 \(\pm \) 0.07 for GLDAS. The standard deviations of the GRACE admittances and GLDAS admittances were 0.31 and 0.68, respectively. For sites that have been observed in a set of sufficiently temporally dense daily sessions, the average correlation between VLBI vertical monthly averaged series and GLDAS or GRACE loading series was 0.47 and 0.43, respectively.     

Earth orientation determinations by short duration VLBI observations

Summary In May 1989 and April 1990 the radio telescopes of the Wettzell Geodetic Fundamental Station in Germany and of the Shanghai Observatory near Seshan in China observed two series of daily VLBI experiments of short duration for precise determination of UT1. In 1990 a few experiments were complemented by the Hartebeesthoek Radio Astronomy Observatory in South Africa and the Medicina telescope of the Bologna Istituto di Radioastronomia in Italy. Employing the South African station together with the east-west baseline formed by the observatories of Seshan and Medicina permitted simultaneous determinations of UT1 and polar motion. Here we report on the results of these observations. Comparing the UT1 results with those of the IRIS Intensive series gives a clear indication of the absolute accuracy of such short duration VLBI measurements which is estimated to be of the order of ±60µs.     

基于VLBI观测的基线改正方法

针对甚长基线干涉测量(VLBI)技术中,测站坐标精度与高精度的VLBI宽带观测不相匹配的问题,该文提出一种利用VLBI本身观测结果分析测站坐标改正量的方法。利用观测得到的时延值扣除几何时延及各种已知误差项后,残余部分还存在由基线矢量误差引起的时延、两地原子钟同步误差和系统误差引起的时延,给出残余时延与基线矢量误差等的计算模型。采用国家授时中心VLBI2010系统观测数据,计算结果表明,吉林-喀什基线的基线长度改正量约为11.467 7cm,观测值与拟合值的对比表明这种方法的可行性。     

A unified approach to self-calibration of terrestrial laser scanners

In recent years, the method of self-calibration widely used in photogrammetry has been found suitable for the estimation of systematic errors in terrestrial laser scanners. Since high correlations can be present between the estimated parameters, ways to reduce them have to be found. This paper presents a unified approach to self-calibration of terrestrial laser scanners, where the parameters in a least-squares adjustment are treated as observations by assigning appropriate weights to them. The higher these weights are the lower the parameter correlations are expected to be. Self-calibration of a pulsed laser scanner Leica Scan Station was performed with the unified approach. The scanner position and orientation were determined during the measurements with the help of a total station, and the point clouds were directly georeferenced. The significant systematic errors were zero error in the laser rangefinder and vertical circle index error. Most parameter correlations were comparatively low. In part, precise knowledge of the horizontal coordinates of the scanner centre helped greatly to achieve low correlation between these parameters and the zero error. The approach was shown to be advantageous to the use of adjustment with stochastic (weighted) inner constraints where the parameter correlations were higher. At the same time, the collimation error could not be estimated reliably due to its high correlation with the scanner azimuth because of a limited vertical distribution of the targets in the calibration field. While this problem can be solved for a scanner with a nearly spherical field-of-view, it will complicate the calibration of scanners with limited vertical field-of-view. Investigations into the influence of precision of the scanner position and levelling on the adjustment results lead to two important findings. First, it is not necessary to level the scanner during the measurements when using the unified approach since the parameter correlations are relatively low anyway. Second, the scanner position has to be known with a precision of about 1 mm in order to get a reliable estimate of the zero error.     

A geodetic approach for the recovery of global kinematic plate parameters

Modern techniques of precise geodetic positioning are capable of monitoring global tectonic movements. We can avoid the tremendous effort of observing those point motions at every place on the earth, if we accept the model of rigid tectonic plates, which allows us to extrapolate from discrete point observations to the appertaining plates. The target of describing plate kinematics is the determination of its kinematic parameters, which are the coordinates of the rotation pole and the rotational velocity of each tectonic plate. A mathematical model is presented, which is capable of including geodetic observations (point coordinate shifts, distance changes) as well as geophysical quantities (sea floor spreading rates, earthquake slip vectors). The parameter estimation procedure is derived and demonstrated in simulated examples. Finally a global geodetic network for space techniques is designed, which provides an optimum parameter estimation.     

Indirect approach to invariant point determination for SLR and VLBI systems: an assessment

We assess the accuracy of some indirect approaches to invariant point (IVP), or system reference point, determination of satellite laser ranging (SLR) and very long baseline interferometry (VLBI) systems using both observed and simulated survey data sets. Indirect IVP determination involves the observation of targets located on these systems during specific rotational sequences and by application of geometrical models that describe the target motion during these sequences. Of concern is that most SLR and VLBI systems have limited rotational freedom thereby placing constraint on the reliability of parameter estimation, including the IVP position. We assess two current approaches to IVP analysis using survey data observed at the Yarragadee (Australia) SLR and the Medicina (Italy) VLBI sites and also simulated data of a large rotationally constrained (azimuth-elevation) VLBI system. To improve reliability we introduce and assess some new geometric conditions, including inter-axis, inter-circle and inter-target conditions, to existing IVP analysis strategies. The error component of a local tie specifically associated with the indirect determination of SLR and VLBI IVP is less than 0.5 mm. For systems with significant rotational limits we find that the inter-axis and inter-circle conditions are critical to the computation of unbiased IVP coordinates at the sub-millimetre level. When the inter-axis and inter-circle geometric conditions are not imposed, we retrieve biased vertical coordinates of the IVP (in our simulated VLBI system) in the range of 1.2–3.4 mm. Using the new geometric conditions we also find that the axis-offset estimates can be recovered at the sub- millimetre accuracy (0.5 mm).     

VLBI在探月卫星定位中的应用分析

中国实施的"嫦娥"探月工程中,探月卫星的定轨测控系统由我国现有的S频段航天测控网(USB)和甚长基线干涉测量(VLBI)系统组成。系统中,VLBI技术主要为绕月卫星定轨提供卫星的角位置。本文分析了在探月项目中,VLBI单点定位的必要性。探讨了VLBI技术用于探月卫星单点定位的基本原理及其实现方法。通过算例对模拟数据进行处理,检验了方法的正确性。对结果进行分析,得出一些结论。     

BDS高精度动态检测系统的设计与实现

针对中国北斗卫星导航系统(BDS)用户设备动态性能的检测需求,本文设计了一种可以在真实环境下,高效、自动化测试的检测系统,称为BDS高精度动态检测系统(BDHDS).该系统以依维柯汽车为载体,高精度的惯性组合导航系统为测试基准,布设了卫星信号采集回放仪、卫星信号转发器、测试暗箱、监控设备等专业测试设备,并且基于JavaScript开发了自动化测试评估软件,实现了卫星信号采集、回放,测试结果实时显示,测试报表自动生成、测试过程记录等功能.为了检测BDHDS的有效性,本文选择了两种不同型号的BDS设备分别进行了静态、低速动态和高速动态跑车试验,试验结果表明该检测系统能够直观高效地评估BDS用户设备的动态性能.     

地面三维激光扫描地形测量数据粗差剔除算法及实现

本文基于地面三维激光扫描技术用于地形测量时点云数据的特点,得到引起结果存在粗差的障碍物上的点云具有坡度大于实际地形上坡度的特征,并据此提出了一种实用的粗差提取算法。对算法的原理、实现过程和其中重要参数的确定进行了分析,并编程实现了算法。最后,应用实例对粗差提取效果进行了检验,证明了算法的可行性和可靠性。     

Combination of long time-series of troposphere zenith delays observed by VLBI

Within the International Very Long Baseline Interferometry (VLBI) Service for Geodesy and Astrometry (IVS), long time-series of zenith wet and total troposphere delays have been combined at the level of parameter estimates. The data sets were submitted by eight IVS Analysis Centers (ACs) and cover January 1984 to December 2004. In this paper, the combination method is presented and the time-series submitted by the eight IVS ACs are compared with each other. The combined zenith delays are compared with time-series provided by the International Global Navigation Satellite System (GNSS) Service (IGS), and with zenith delays derived from the European Centre for Medium-Range Weather Forecasts (ECMWF). Before the combination, outliers are eliminated from the individual time-series using the robust BIBER (bounded influence by standardized residuals) estimator. For each station and AC, relative weight factors are obtained by variance component estimation. The mean bias of the IVS ACs’ time-series with respect to the IVS combined time-series is 0.89 mm and the mean root mean square is 7.67 mm. Small differences between stations and ACs can be found, which are due to the inhomogeneous analysis options, different parameterizations, and different treatment of missing in-situ pressure records. Compared to the IGS zenith total delays, the combined IVS series show small positive mean biases and different long-term trends. Zenith wet delays from the ECMWF are used to validate the IVS combined series. Inconsistencies, e.g., long-term inhomogeneity of the in-situ pressure data used for the determination of VLBI zenith delays, are identified.     

A VLBI Delay Model for Radio Sources at a Finite Distance

A relativistic delay model for Earth-based very long baseline interferometry (VLBI) observation of sources at finite distances is derived. The model directly provides the VLBI delay in the scale of terrestrial time. The effect of the curved wave front is represented by using a pseudo source vector K = (R ₁ + R ₂)/(R ₁ + R ₂), and the variation of the baseline vector due to the difference of arrival time is taken into account up to the second-order by using Halley’s method. The precision of the new VLBI delay model is 1 ps for all radio sources above 100 km altitude from the Earth’s surface in Earth-based VLBI observation. Simple correction terms (parallax effect) are obtained, which can also adopt the consensus model (e.g. International Earth Rotation and Reference Frames Service conventions) to finite-distance radio source at R > 10 pc with the same precision. The new model may enable estimation of distance to the radio source directly with VLBI delay data.     

Modeling thermal deformation of VLBI antennas with a new temperature model

Temperature variations at very long baseline interferometry (VLBI) sites cause thermal deformations of the VLBI antennas and corresponding displacements of the VLBI reference points. The thermal deformation effects typically contain seasonal and daily signatures. The amplitudes of the annual vertical motion of the antenna reference point can reach several millimeters, depending on the design of the antenna structure, on the material, and on the environmental effects such as global station position, station height and climatology effects. Simple methods to correct this effect use the difference of the environmental temperature with respect to a defined reference temperature, the antenna dimensions, the elevation of the antenna, the material of antenna structure. Applying these simple models for thermal deformation in the VLBI data analysis improves the baseline length repeatability by 3.5%. A comparison of these simple models with local thermal deformation measurements at the antennas in Onsala and Wettzell show that the local measurements and the modeled corrections agree well when the temperature of the antenna structure is used, but agree less good when the surrounding air temperatures are used. To overcome this problem we present a method to model temperature penetration into the antenna structures, that allows to model thermal deformation effects that agree with the observed vertical deformation of the Onsala and Wettzell radio telescopes with a root mean square deviation of 0.07 and 0.13 mm, respectively. Possible implementations in the VLBI analysis are presented, and the definition of an adequate reference temperature is discussed.     

ITRF2008框架下VLBI与GPS确定地心坐标的精度分析

为了解ITRF2008框架下VLBI和GPS两种空间技术确定地心坐标的真正实现精度,在并置站上对VLBI和GPS两种空间技术测定的地心坐标进行了比较,经过偏心改正和七参数转换之后,得到两种空间技术地心坐标不符值的加权中误差,其可以认为是这两种空间技术的真正实现精度,经比较分析这两种地心坐标三个坐标轴方向分量的外符精度都在10mm之内,说明VLBI和GPS确定的地心坐标精度已达到毫米级。     

GPS与VLBI实现独立地球参考架坐标场的比较

对GPS与VLBI实现的两个最新的具有代表性的独立地球参考架JPL04P01.trf和GSF2005Rb.trf进行坐标场的比较分析。数据处理使用抗差迭代等价权理论,与经典的最小二乘平差加余差分析方法进行对比,前一方法能有效抵制观测信息异常的干扰,评定坐标转换参数的精度更加合理;两种空间大地测量技术实现独立地球参考架的外符合精度(即实际的实现精度)达到±5mm左右水平,较同一序列以前实现的参考架提高了±(1~3)mm。